


Skin Memory

by jeeps



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Amnesia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-26
Updated: 2004-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-04 00:19:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeps/pseuds/jeeps





	Skin Memory

You are a patient man; this is something they didn't have to tell you.

The rest of what you know is shaped in the voices of enemies. You know, because they have told you, and you do not yet have anything else to believe; you do not remember.

***

They told you that this was your home now, and you should become used to it. Some in tones of acclimation, others in threat. You didn't understand either.

The walls of this house seem to warp closer toward you. It isn't claustrophobia; you don't recognize what it is yet, but you spend hours wandering the rooms and corridors, trailing your fingertips along the ancient paneling, dipping them into something, something you can't see. You think it might be pleasure.

You find yourself in the drawing room most often. It is, oddly, one of the least occupied areas in the house, and you memorize the names on the tapestry covering the far wall, and the spaces where names once were. Your own is there, linked to two others.

_Narcissa._

Of course, you also spend much of your mornings staring into the black-edge mirror in the bathroom they have given you. Any man would hope, looking into his own steel-grey eyes, aristocratic slope of his nose, lines parenthesizing the corners of his mouth in a way he's found lend more to a bitter curl of his lips than a smile— any man would hope these things would come together like pieces of a puzzle to make a whole picture. Instead the skin that stretches between them is blank, the vulnerable parts that allowed you to be blasted away. _Obliviated,_ they say.

_Draco._

It is all smooth and thin. You do not have the years of memory to make you feel old and alone.

They say, _They are dead._

***

There is one who is different from the others. You know you are not being romantic; this one must be younger than you, but he is gravely silent and his face holds enough memory for the both of you. But this has nothing to do with pathos. When the other is near, he tugs not at heart or cock, but the ink on your forearm. The snake comes alive and slivers through the gaping maw of the skull, its forked tongue flicking against your skin, lapping through it to caress your veins. It pools in your groin, heavy and languid.

You sat on your bed one night and rested a hand between your legs while examining the marking. You held it up to the moonlight to see, and the scales of the serpent glinted silver.

***

"You belong here, too," comes the revelation, when all the others have left and _Lupin_, you have overheard them say, is still at the table in the kitchen, back bent under the pipe smoke murking through the low light of the fire. He stills the quill in his hand and gives a sidelong look, eyes narrow and dangerous alleys.

"No."

"You live here." He does not respond. "You work here. You sleep here."

His eyes shutter as he looks away and says calmly, "I hate it here."

"Yes," you say, and walk back up the stairs.

***

You are gentle with the old woman when you speak with her. She weeps sometimes, as you listen to stories of her family, those she loved, those she lost, and those who died. You silence her most grievous unhappinesses with long, sibilant shushes. You don't want to have to close the curtain over her until it is necessary, when the tears threaten to run oil paint down the canvas.

"I will be leaving soon," you say, but not to the portrait.

The even breathing behind you is indication enough of his thoughts on the matter. Still, he offers a requisite "You have been given a second chance."

"No," you reply in kind, and when the portrait returns your smile her eyes are pigments. "It is a first chance."

You turn. He is close enough that you can feel his body heat, unconcerned if he is invading anyone's space but his own.

You raise a hand to his jaw and lean forward and press your lips to his. It tastes like ease and ink, and when your arm brushes his neck the snake sinks its fangs into your skin and you can feel its release as venom spurts into your body.

"And you will stay?"

"I've taken all of my chances," he whispers.

***

The house doesn't seem to want to let you go, but he had said _I won't stop you_, and you had taken what was offered.


End file.
